GE Crops

All in one day, there was a trifecta of good news for agriculture in Hawaii. Let’s hope there is more to come. Farming on Kauai will not require an environmental assessment or impact statement. Despite the efforts of those wanting to keep agriculture in the Victorian era, Judge Randal Valenciano didn’t buy the argument that production […]

Between 2004 and 2010, pollen drift from GE papaya to non-GE papaya was examined in commercial plantings and replicated field trials by Dennis Gonsalves and co-investigators. Results showed very low levels of transgene flow to non-GE papaya, most likely due to the self-pollinating characteristic of commercial varieties. The results also suggest that organic farmers could […]

The frequency of pollen flow with distance in corn is demonstrated and explained well in this report on GE and non-GE hybrids grown in close proximity at three locations over three years. The simple dominance of the yellow colored GE kernels shows the relationship visually: B. L. Ma, February, 2005 Cross fertilization and concerns over […]

By Ania Wieczorek, Biotech in Focus, University of Hawaii, August 2014 It is possible that genes may move among GE crops and other closely related plants. A closely related plant is generally of the same species as the crop plant. Science has found that under certain conditions rare gene flow to another species does occur: […]

Genetically engineered crops were grown on about 175 million acres in 2014, covering some 43% of US cropland. The acreage is dominated by soybeans and corn, with only a few other GE crops in production including cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa, canola, squash and papaya. Where does it all go? Everywhere Approximately 70-90% of all GE […]

The Grocery Manufacturers Association has estimated that 70-80% of the foods we consume in the US have some ingredients from crops that have been genetically engineered (GE)*. The natural assumption is that a majority of the food crops in the US must also be GE varieties. It turns out that very few GE crops are […]

From reading popular media, you could quickly come to the conclusion that the main supporters of genetically modified (GM) crops are the seed companies and most scientists. Shouldn’t we ask farmers who actually grow the crops why they use them? For most of us, our closest farm experience is the grocery store. However, there are […]